in verse 1 and go through verse
10. When Jesus had spoken these words,
he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify your Son that the Son
may glorify you, since you have given him all authority over
all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true
God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on
earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory
that I had before the world existed with you. I have manifested your
name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they
were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Now they know everything that you have given me is from you.
For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have
received them, and have come to know in truth that I came
from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying
for them. I am not praying for the world,
but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine
are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. There are so many little nuggets
in this section of scripture. I may end up preaching this section
again and again and again and again. There's a lot there. And preaching is one of those
weird things. You ever thought about preaching?
Some guy like me, you know, at least 104 times a year prepares
to teach something in front of a group of people. Something
that we've been reading for thousands of years, that Christians throughout
the ages have all had the Bible, yet it is the practice of healthy
believers to assemble together to deal with what the word is
saying. And I think what happens in our
culture and over time is that men get bored with the Bible.
I think people get bored with the Bible. I think a lot of preachers
get bored with the Bible. I make distinction between preachers
and pastors, shepherds, elders, teachers. But I think they get
bored. I think they think, well, there's
got to be some creativity here. There needs to be some different
application. There needs to be some relative
investment here. Maybe something with the culture
that could give us a little bit more insight, a little bit more
focus. And I could talk about that and
waste our time today. Think about that as we go through
this text. About what type of preparation does it really take
to see what Jesus is saying here? Many of you have even said to
me through the years, you know, I just don't see how you see
what you see. And the answer for most is let's go and find
a pastor who's taught it. Let's hear what he has to say
or let's read a commentary who's written concerning it. Let's
see what it has to say. Or let's find some expert. But
beloved, I firmly believe, and I'm of the belief, that if we
just read the text, and it is familiar to us, that as God's
chosen people, who are indwelt by the Spirit, that is the relationship
that the Scripture teaches us concerning God the Spirit, He
indwells us. We are in Christ, the Spirit
is in us, we are all in the Father, you know. This is relationship. That the Spirit of God will give
us these aha, simple realities, simple answers. And so ask yourself,
what is it that verse six, which is where we are today, I have
manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. What do you see there? What is
important in that text? Isn't it not just a recapitulation
of what Jesus has already said? You've given me authority to
give life to all whom you have given me. This is eternal life
that they know you. Isn't it just restating? But
why would Jesus be restating? Some people say, well, it's common
among Jesus as well as the apostles to restate things for the emphasis. But Jesus isn't talking to the
apostles anymore. Jesus isn't talking to the disciples. They
weren't sent yet. They weren't apostles yet. But
they would be. But He's not speaking. He's speaking
to God the Father. He's talking to God. He's talking
to His Father. So does He need to remind God
of what He's doing? No. He is charging in His prayer
by the conditions of His divine nature that which the Father
has decreed. He's charging the Father to do
that which is guaranteed. And he is praying for a people
that God has given him. And in the first part of verse
6 there, we see one of the richest gospel
nuggets of the entire Gospel of John. Now, of course, we need
the rest of what we've learned thus far and what we will learn
in the continuation of this text. to really grasp it. But this
is what Jesus is saying here. I have manifested your name to
the people. What does that mean? We have
seen the glory of God. We have seen God face to face. We know the unknowable God. We are intimate with the holy
God of the cosmos. Remember what holy means? Remember
what it means to be sanctified? The sanctified, holy, set apart,
those are all synonymous. They mean the exact same thing.
So for God to be set apart means He's holy. He is holy because
He is not like anything else. So He is set apart beyond and
above everything else. And His authority over everything
else is that He created everything else. So I cannot create something
with my hands or with my mind that is greater than I am. So
if I create a poem, you might know me for that poem, or you
might exalt me for that poem, or I might become famous for
that creation, but the poem is not me. And the poem doesn't
represent me. as greater than me. God is greater
than all things. But see, we have a misunderstanding
of the idea of holiness. We think holiness is only dealing
with the status of righteousness. That God is holy because He's
perfect in His morals. But see, God is above morals.
Everything that God does is how we define what is righteous.
Everything that God says and teaches is how we define. It
is the standard by which we look to know what is right and wrong,
what is good and bad, what is righteous and evil. So we do not say, here's the
standard, God fits it, He's holy, holy, holy. No, God is above
it and beyond it all. He is the standard. Christ is
the righteousness of God. Jesus Christ. So when we understand
that, we need to see here what pops into our mind. Christ has
manifested the name of God to the people. Now, he doesn't say
all people. He says, to the people whom you
gave me. That's the gospel. He already
said, this is eternal life, that they know you and the Son you
have sent, the one true God. He encompasses He and the Father
as the one true God. And we dealt with that week before
last. Or the week before that, I don't know when. And it's just
the expression that calls by the Holy Spirit John to write
his prologue, the first 18 verses of this entire gospel. He had
all this. By the Spirit he had it all,
not just to memory, but to spiritual understanding. And so as he's
penning the words of Jesus, as we read the words of Jesus, we
need to have that in mind. Jesus is saying here, I have
given eternal life to those you gave me. Now I have a question for tonight.
about does faith in itself save? And I'm not going to get into
that this morning because it begs to define what people mean
when they ask questions. What is faith? And philosophers
have done a wonderful job of butchering the definition of
faith. Theologians who have become philosophers have done a wonderful
job of butchering faith. God's Word teaches what faith
is. Faith, in a nutshell, is the gift of God through the revelation
of God concerning His Son for His people. So we believe what
the Bible teaches concerning who Christ is and what he did
for his people. So in that, that's what Jesus
is saying. I have manifested, I have disclosed,
I have revealed, I have given your name to the people you gave
me. Now I want to ask a question
here that's completely rhetorical. All of you will answer it in
your own minds and you will see, and answer it rightly I believe,
but you will see the ridiculousness of the alternative. Where in
anything that Jesus has ever taught in John's gospel thus
far has he put the onus of salvation on the will of man? Where? Where has Jesus taught
that anyone who ever lived could see His glory? He hasn't. And the argumentation for those
things are not contextual. They may be historical, they
may be theological in construction, they may be greatly logical,
but they're not contextual. And if they're not contextual,
then God hasn't taught it. And God hasn't revealed it. These
people, as we already see, have in their mind a very shaky understanding
of Christ. Right? Jesus has already told
them they're going to scatter, they're going to be persecuted,
they're going to be destroyed. He's told Peter directly, you're going
to deny me by name three times before the sun comes up. Never,
ever, ever would I do that. And in Peter's mind, he would
never do that. Peter was willing to chop off
ears to save Jesus from arrest, as you'll see in about 10 years. But yet, they were born of God. How? Because Jesus had manifested
the name of God to them. to everybody? No, just to those
the Father has given Him. What does it mean to manifest?
What does it mean to reveal? What does it mean, this is eternal
life? If you must know God in His fullness in order to see
Him, and seeing Him is life because He is life. You see, I said this
last week. I'm gonna say it again. There
is no such place in scripture where God has established this
Particle called life and offering it to people. Here's life. Would
you take it? Would you take it? Would you
take it? No, I'm life see me I Can't see you you're the invisible
immortal God no one's ever seen God God has no face Jesus is
my face. Jesus is my presence. He is the
exact imprint of my nature That's what Paul tells of the church
tells the Church of Colossae Everything that God is is Jesus
Christ. He is the resurrection. He is the life so believing in
Christ as the life is eternal life and For him to be the life. He must be God and But see, we
have bogged down in man-centered theology for so many hundreds
of years that we have forsaken the very context of Scripture
concerning eternal life. We'd be willing to say that some
of us would hold a tract in our hand and say, this little paragraph
here is eternal life. If you agree to check, yes, I
believe this on a box, you are saved. That's hogwash from hell. Never heard that before, have
you? It's hogwash. That's a southern way of saying
a nasty bunch of mess. Chicken litter. There's another
one that's more relevant for us. It's garbage. I've manifested your name. Everything
that God is, is Jesus. He is life. He is Redeemer in
and of Himself. And it is justified and clearly
effectual because of His cross work as a human being. That's
what keeps God in the holy position. And that's a figure of speech.
He is just to justify sinners because Christ has redeemed them
with His blood. And God has given those for redemption
to the Son. And they belong to Him. What
else does it say there? Look, those you gave me. Whom you gave me. I've manifested
your name to the people whom you gave me. In other words, those who are
not given to Jesus cannot see life. We need to go in with a magic
eraser. What's up, bald-headed guy? Mr.
Clean. We need to get a Mr. Clean eraser and go into our
brains and just... We need to scrub out this verbiage
of accepting Jesus. It makes no sense. We need to
get the verbiage of asking Jesus into our lives as demonic. We need to put that in our hard
stone dictionary. This is not truth. And people
scream semantics, people scream different variations of interpretation. Well, that's what it means to
you, but it works. It doesn't work. You can't exercise some
little practical expression and say, okay, I've got to turn to
life now. You are granted faith because God in His mercy has
given you to the Son. What does that mean? What's the
implication there? That God controls you and concerning your salvation,
it is all in His hands. And I hear religious people my
entire life, the last 15 years especially, who have said that
is the scariest thing I've ever heard. And my answer to that
is because you have not been granted a changed mind to see
the glory of Christ. To the praise of your glorious
grace, or thank you God, you gave me enough options to choose
rightly. Which is it? God saved you or
you saved you? You can't have it both ways.
God is either God or he's just like you hope you get the real
pretty stickers out of the gumball machines. Oh! Got the cheap yin-yang ring that
never fits the kids, you know? You didn't even know we were
all Buddhists. We're all just... Y'all don't get that? You don't
use quarters in machines anymore? Okay. Y'all put dollar bills in these
little cranes. I want that gold watch, and what
do you get? A Skittle for a dollar. You could buy a bag for 50 cents.
Jesus is given from the Father. Now see, people would take this
in a pretext and say, yeah, yeah, but whosoever believeth, whosoever
calleth on the name of the Lordeth, And just keep on going and going
and going. And ladies and gentlemen, I can
take a couple of ingredients out of a recipe all day long
and pretend like it's another recipe. I use that illustration
a lot in our class on Tuesdays in Hebrews, where if you go to
page nine of a recipe and you just say, aha, take it out the
oven and serve. What have I made? I don't know.
What, the iron grate that you put the food on? The light bulbs? The baking element? What am I taking out of this?
I have to know the whole recipe. You can't inject what is not
taught in Scripture by this. Some people say, well, God gives
you to the Son, but that's the figure of speech in a sense because
you've got to come to God first. Where else has this language
been used? John 6. No one can come to me unless
the Father snatch him out of darkness and give him to me.
And if you don't think that's what it's taught, go back and
listen to the context of that grammar in John 6, just read
it. Draw you against your natural
ability, draw you against your natural will, snatch you out
of the domain of darkness. When has there ever been a wooing
of God? I mean, that's what baffles me. Wooing, ooh, God is so pretty. God, this offer is so good, but
you know, I really wanna go party tomorrow night, and I don't know,
Jesus, that doesn't fit. Can I wait till Friday? I know
that you're calling me to life, but I wanna wait till next week
to do something about it. Sound ridiculous, that sounds,
but that's exactly the implications of not reading this in its context.
God has control. over all flesh. Jesus has just
prayed you've given me authority over all flesh in order that
I give life to all those you gave me. So the implication of
that as we've already seen in John chapter 5 is that Jesus
will raise up all flesh and some unto eternal life because they've
been granted it by the Father in the giving to the Son, who
died on their behalf, or eternal damnation, which is the judgment
of God, the Son, against all the reprobate. You cannot, in any culture, whatever
culture, I mean, we've studied, and there might be one weird
little cult somewhere along the way that has an exception to
this, so I won't say all, But you'd be very hard-pressed to
find any historical culture where it was okay to walk into a house
and to destroy every living thing in it and every person there
and not be guilty of some crime. And in that same culture, justice
reigns through the recompense of providing death or imprisonment
for that crime. And in no time, in any sense
of justice, can the person who's guilty of murder just be told,
it's alright, it's okay, don't worry about it. Just don't do
it again. Where has that ever been done? So there is no righteous
way in the economy of God's holiness where He will ever just say to
any sinner, it's okay, don't worry about it. It's never been
said, it never will be said, it doesn't even happen among
pagan and evil people. Well, I know a lot of people
in the subculture of certain communities, like gangs, they
kill each other, there's a code. And you kill one, then they get
to kill one, and then they get to kill one, and then they get
to kill one, and then they get to kill one. Even if they agree,
we don't care, kill whoever gets in your way, you kill the wrong
one and see if somebody don't want vengeance. It doesn't work. So if it doesn't
work in life, if it doesn't work in history, if it doesn't work
in what even the human mind knows about what is good and righteous,
then how in the world do we think it works in the economy of God? It doesn't. God is in control
of all His people's redemption. He put Christ forth on the cross. That wasn't man's decision, that
was God's decision. He brought the world into existence. Of all of my children, I can't
think of any of them who have ever messaged me before conception
and messaged me before birth and said, yo, my future daddy,
I'm ready to be brought into the world. This ten months and mama has
been killing me, could you get on with it? I mean, you know,
it's time to go. See at 4.05 p.m. this afternoon. It doesn't
work. It doesn't work. They are given to the Son because
God is in control of that. So when you find yourself in
the place of redemption, When you find yourself covered by
the grace of God, when you find that you have been changed in
an instant, that your mind no longer worries and labors. Listen to the words I'm using.
They're not frivolous. Worries and labors. works to
try to make sure that you're righteous before God when your
mind is granted the reprieve of that fight and You rest squarely
in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That is That is repentance And you are granted repentance
and know that you have been given repentance because you believe
in Christ and His finished work as God on your behalf. And that
His righteousness is yours. How will you stand before the
Father if He asks you, how are you righteous? How are you perfect? You can't. You have to say what Christ has
said concerning himself. You have given me to your son,
Jesus, who died in my place and whose perfect righteousness is
given to me. I find it interesting, too, that
whom you gave me out of the world Oh, the craziness and the insanity
that we construct in our debates in humanism. Humanistic religion,
humanistic Christianity, humanistic gospels, no gospel at all. We
come and we see the word world sometimes in our culture. See,
every single person without exception doesn't mean that. Never means
that. Hasn't ever meant that. What
rules the definition of a word? Context. Above and beyond its
own meaning. Context can change it. Of course, we yield to its meaning
in context that we might understand it in context. And when the context
points it in the right direction, we can grasp it and say, aha,
see how it's used. When it doesn't, the context
wins. That's why word studies and Bible
study is really a fool's errand. Especially if you're going to
Hebrew words. I find that odd. Though I love Hebrew history,
I love the Hebrew language. I think it's interesting. But what Jesus is saying here
has nothing to do with Hebrew at all. Never was written in Hebrew
until somebody translated it into Hebrew, whenever that happened. but they were given to the Son
out of the world. What comes to mind there? Maybe
Ephesians 2? You were once dead in your transgressions,
in your sins. Like the rest of humanity, by
nature, children of wrath. That's the world, being a child
of wrath. The fallenness of humanity. The
depravity of humanity. So the very fact that God's children
are out of the world shows that by nature they are depraved. But by decree, they are redeemed. And the perfect redemption of
Jesus at the cross satisfied the debt for the Father. that
He is just and the justifier of all who believe in Jesus Christ. I saw someone commenting this
weekend that it's often simple just to divide things out and
just stop dealing with things at this level of context and
just say, oh, let's just say Jesus and be done with it. It's
just about, you believe in Jesus? Yes, good, we're all brothers
and sisters. What? That's the Bible teach. The last
verse, the last sentence of John 2 says what? Many people believed
in Jesus because of the many signs and wonders he did, but
he did not believe in them for he knew men and no one had to
tell him what was in the heart of men. And in the very example
of that, there was a man named Nicodemus who came to Jesus,
who was a Pharisee, he was the teacher of Israel, he came to
Jesus and he confessed, we know you are Messiah, the one who
come from God, for no one can do what you do except that God
be with him. And Jesus in rebuke says, you
cannot see unless you're born of God. You
cannot enter unless you're born of God. Now what was the problem
in Nicodemus' confession? He was just confessing to some
facts, to some historical prophecies. And in every fiber of his being,
he was excited about Messiah, just like the whole of Jerusalem
and Judea was excited about the birth of John the Baptist, not
so much about the birth of Jesus. Yet Nicodemus' confession was
of an academic theological nature. It was not of a supernatural
nature. Because he could not see Jesus
as God standing there. He could not see Jesus as the
supreme and sovereign God of salvation. We see that when we've
been born of God. And we see that Jesus has already
said that concerning Himself numerous times. They are out of the world, and You have given them to Me,
and I have manifested Your name to them. Therefore, they have
eternal life. They have eternal life. Beloved,
if I don't say anything else today, I want you to hear this.
That's your assurance. That's your assurance. That's
your assurance when you are living like the moral, impeccable example
of Christian values. That's your assurance when in
the midst of all that, you stub your toe and say all sorts of
sailor words. That's your assurance when in
the midst of the hardest time of your life, you give up and
wonder, has God abandoned me? And that assurance is not something
that you or I can muster in our own flesh or minds, but it is
a supernatural reality of God. And He brings it to us. And He teaches us what Jesus
has already said, I will not leave you orphans. I will not
abandon you. I will not forsake you. And see,
that's a message of truth for you elect people, for you regenerate
people, for you church. That is not a universal message
for the world. As a matter of fact, for reprobate
people, for unbelieving people, to say God will not abandon them,
is to say God will not forget His wrath. We don't want the presence of
God with us, or the person of God with us, if we are not His.
Because it is judgment. The light has come into the world,
but people love the darkness rather than the light because...
Why do they love the darkness? They don't want the light of
Christ to shine upon their religion. And this is Christians I'm talking
about. cultural Christianity They don't
want the light of Christ to shine upon their Christ their religion
their salvation their assurance because when he does We see it
for what it is I've sold a lot of coins on eBay through the
years and One thing about coins is
their condition and the surface kid especially if it's a mint
and If they're scratched and all, you just might as well throw
it in the scrap pile. But it devalues the more you
touch it, the more it gets scratched, if it's circulated, if it's uncirculated,
you know, it doesn't matter. But a really awesome camera,
I remember the first time I bought an SLR that was 10 megapixels.
You know, that was something else. Now our iPhones are bigger
than that. And I took the first few sets of pictures, and I put
them on eBay, and we're like, this coin's in terrible shape.
I look at the picture, look at the coin, oh my goodness. These
aren't my pictures. Dust particles. Laying on top
of the coin, dust particles because of the awesomeness of the lens
and the shining of the flash made the dust particles look
like the coin had been scratched. And you couldn't see them with
the naked eye. Even though they were big enough to see. So I
learned to take with an indirect flash because the light exposes
the reality. You ever cleaned your house real
good, get through cleaning your kitchen, you think, man, this
thing is clean or whatever, and you drop something, have to get
a flashlight, look under the refrigerator? You didn't see
that until you put the light on. You want to make your house
look clean and cozy, turn off all the lights, light some candles.
It's the cleanest thing you've ever been in. Turn on the light, you
see everything. When the light of Christ shines
on the religion of man, which is darkness, we see it for what
it is. And when we haven't been born
of God, we hate Him. Turn off the light. That was my mother's M.O. growing
up. Lights on, window treatments
open. I hate that noise to this day.
I don't have any window treatments in my house that have that rod
hook system that makes that noise. Can't stand it. Because you come
in, time to get up, son. Ain't it a good day? It's not
a great day. Turn off the light. There's the
sun. We don't want that. We want to
remain in darkness in our flesh, our unconverted state. We don't
want somebody to say, imagine somebody saying to us this day,
the light of the glory of God shines in our hearts and we see
for 20 years we've been worshiping a false Jesus. You know the first
thing that rises up in us? Pride. I can't tell somebody I ain't been
saved. That's loving the glory that comes from man rather than
the glory that comes from God. But if we were drowning, if we
were dying of disease, if we were about to perish by fire
and someone snatched us out of it, it doesn't matter if it was
the homeless crackhead from around the corner. He's our best friend. Christ is the light of life. of men. You've got to see that, beloved. So Jesus says this, yours they
were, I'm ahead of myself, and you gave them to me. This is
the sovereignty of God over redemption. And the last phrase of the sentence
is where we are now. And they have kept your word. This makes my stomach hurt. Why
does it make my stomach hurt? Because so many well-meaning
religious people in our world use things like that to exercise an undue, unbiblical
burden over the sheep of Christ and they teach it this way. And
this is absolutely evil, what I'm about to say. See? If you're really born of God,
you'll live this way. And if you live this way, you
know you're born of God. Where has that ever been said?
Nowhere. We have instruction about fellowship
in the book of James and the book of 1 John. We've got instructions
about fellowship in the letter to the Ephesians, the Galatians,
1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans, All sorts of instruction
concerning our fellowship with each other. And our fellowship
is with Christ. But every single time in the
Bible when Jesus says, kept your word or my word, every single
time, it is always and only talking about the gospel. Now if you see that in a plural,
it may be talking about what? Loving one another, my words,
my commandments to you. Jesus already told his disciples
that. You are my friends if you love one another. You love me
if you obey this commandment. What does that mean? I can still
be a husband and be out of love with my wife or not treat her
well and not be loving. Jesus is saying your love for
me is not a feeling of affection or infatuation or worship. Worships do the Lord and even
reprobate people will worship Him in all of eternity. Not because
of His worth, because of His title, because of His authority. And I'm using that lightly. Jesus is coupling the idea, if
you obey me in the sense that I say love one another and this
is what love looks like and what it is, then you're my friend
and you are loving me. Paul, why are you persecuting
me, not why are you persecuting all the people that I've saved?
You persecute the believers, you persecute the Lord. You love
the believers, you love the Lord. You love your wife, you love
the Lord. When you're not loving, you're not loving the Lord. It's
nothing to do with your salvation. It's what flows out of your salvation.
And brothers and sisters, we fight a good fight and we fight
a terrible battle in this context for the rest of our lives. Word. Singular. What word? Everything Jesus has ever said
concerning Himself. and concerning His work and concerning
the salvation of the people that God has given Him. This is the
point. The confession of our hope is
abiding in the Word of Christ, which says He is our Redeemer. How do we know that? Context.
Every single time is context. Have you kept the Word of Christ?
If you believe, in Christ alone, His work as God, as man, His
sacrifice, His resurrection, His redemption, His imputed righteousness. You are keeping His word. When
you throw that away and you go back to works, you have not kept
the gospel. When you throw that away and
go back to cultural Christianity, you've not kept the gospel. When
you add to Jesus, you've not kept the gospel. When you add
free will, you've not kept the gospel. When you add humanism,
you've not kept the gospel. You don't keep the gospel by
adding to or taking away from it. This is who Christ died for. And those who are given to Christ
keep the word. And who are specifically in view,
in context here, who's he talking about right now? The 11. The 11 left in the room watching
Him pray. How uncomfortable. How uncomfortable. And they've
kept Your Word. Because they've believed in Me.
They've believed in Me because You gave them to Me. You gave
them to Me because they are Yours. And you have granted them the
mind to see and the gift of faith so that they know that they've
been given to me. They know that I have saved them.
What must you do to be saved? Believe in what Christ has done
to save you. Only. And again, I'm ahead of myself,
verse seven. Now they know that everything that you have given
me is from you." This is a recapitulation again. What is Jesus saying here?
Well, just think of it simply. Now, right now, eschatologically,
not they will, not they have or they did, but now. You've
given them to me. They have been saved. They have
been born again. They have been set apart. They are sanctified. They are
holy. And they are justified in the impending work that I
will do on the cross. And they know everything that
You have given Me is from You. What does that mean? That means
that Jesus has not operated in His own authority. But He submitted
Himself in the incarnation to God the Father and that everything
concerning redemption for them comes from Him. that He comes from Him. Who comes from God? The only
Son that He has, the only begotten of God, the first, the last,
the beginning, the end. God Himself in human flesh comes
from God the Father. So they're saying right there,
as He'll say down in the latter part of verse 8, that my word,
my gospel, my plan, my teaching, everything that you've shown
them, they know it comes from you. They are not following me
as a man, they are following me as God. As the one come from God. As
the messenger of God. As the gospel come from God.
We're in Galatians in midweek right now. And this should echo,
for those of you who've been reading or listening to that
series, They should echo that. Paul saying, this gospel that
I have is not from man. It's not from man, it's from
God. It's not from other men who got
it from God who gave it to me either. It is directly by direct
revelation of Jesus Christ in His grace for us. Everything. Now see, that statement
there, If I read it out of sync with everything else, I am confused
because these people did not have a real solid foundation
of faith, did they? In a cognitive way. Yes, they
knew what was required to know because God taught them. But
the implications, having saving faith and knowing the truth concerning
the gospel of free and sovereign grace is guaranteed to those
who have been born again. Because it is through the hearing
of that that God does His work in that occasion, if you will. And so nobody is born again who
knows nothing of Christ. Nobody is born again who says,
I don't even know what Christ did or who Christ is. That's
not possible. But yet there are levels of our
understanding the implications of this gospel truth. There are
areas of our lives and seasons of our lives, rather, that when
we walk and when we grow, things become simpler, things become
clearer. And we begin to say, wow, look,
look at this or look at that or look at this. Look at the
power of God's grace. And I don't know about you, but
I mean, there was a time when I could speak other languages fluently. And now when you hear them and
you go, okay, I got that. But, wow, this is choppy. Reading them, you never really
lose it. But speaking them, I mean, that goes away. For me, after 27 years, it can go away. Sometimes when
we're not in the Word of God, when we're not in the assembly,
and we're not reading the Bible, the particulars and the richness
of the grace of God and His glory just sort of vapor on out into
history. Don't believe me? I think everyone
in this room could say, yeah, I've had that. It's not that
you lost faith or didn't believe or didn't know, but it wasn't
top of mind. It was not something that you
dealt with on a constant basis. It wasn't important. Because all the stuff over here,
the world and everything in it that's passing away, by the way,
everything that you're creating for yourself in this life is
garbage in the comparison of the glory of Christ. Hold it
loosely, beloved. Your titles, your roles, your
responsibilities, your wealth, your future. Hold it loosely. Because when it's all said and
done, it passes away. I don't have training wheels
on my bike. I don't have a pacifier that I suck on when I get upset. I don't have my baby pillow anymore,
but I do have a pillow that I carry with me everywhere. I don't want
to sleep on somebody else's pillow. We grow, and through discipline
and by the mercies of God, we continue to grow, and His mercy
is new every day. And that's one of the things
that I find troubling sometimes with so many younger believers,
is that they get so enamored with the academics of it all,
that they lose sight of the glory. And they just want to get more
information. And when the information's obtained, then there's nothing
else to do but fight over it. There's nothing else to do but
find somebody out there who disagrees in just a little bit of way,
or maybe in a bad way, and just to argue over it, debate it,
because you've got all that ammunition, you want to ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, you
want to shoot it out there. You're prepared for war, you want to
go fight. But when you prepare for war
as a Christian, you worship, see. The Christian worships through
hearing and teaching and sharing with the saints, and the Christian
worships in prayer. I mean, the Christian wars in
prayer. They know that everything that
you have given me is from you. For, further explanation, verse
8, I have given them the words that you gave me. So here's the
explanation. Jesus is saying, the words that you gave me. Now
it's plural, isn't it? They keep the gospel, my word,
the truth of my redemption for them, that came from you. Now
everything I've taught them, words, is in view. For I have
given them the words that you gave me. What words does Jesus
preach? The words of God the Father.
until now the Father is working, now I am working, he says in
John 5. The words that I say are the
words given to me by my Father to say. And they have received them and
they have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they
have believed that you sent me." So now we see a little bit of
an expansion of what Jesus is dealing with here. This is what
they now know for sure. Because you have granted them
the knowledge of who I am and from where I come, and more importantly,
from whom I come, and this is the knowledge that you've granted
them, and the reason that you've done it is because they are mine,
and the reason they're mine is because you gave them to me. See, it's not the other way around.
When we in our humanity agree with God concerning His Son,
then He snatches us up and gives us to the Son. No, the reason
we agree, which is faith, is because we've been given to the
Son. And beloved, there's a lot of
people who have been given to the Son who have yet to believe.
But they will. That's why we have the command
to evangelize. There's a lot of people who have
been given to the Son. And He died for them. And He
justified them in a real sense with His blood in the economy
of holiness, in the courts of God. But in the economy of grace,
there is no real and effectual reality for us until God the
Spirit grants us repentance through the gift of faith. It is the gift of faith that
is the change of mind. I've given them the words that
you gave me. I've taught them everything. And I'm praying for
them. For these. And they have received
these words. They have received my teaching.
They have understood who I am. And they have come to know. They
know. in truth that I have come from
you and they have believed that you sent me." What does Paul
say in Ephesians 2? I've mentioned it twice today.
By grace you have been saved. How were you saved, beloved?
By grace. What's the first part of that
in Ephesians 2? You want to go there? Let's look at it. I always go
too fast. Ephesians 2. And you were dead
in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following
the course of this world, following the pattern of the prince of
the power of the air, and the spirit that is now at work in
the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the
passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and
the desires of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath
like the rest of humanity. But God, you see the contrast
now? But God, being rich in mercy,
Why is He so gracious? Because of the love with which
He loved us. Why did He love us? Because we got it right?
No, even when we were dead in our sins, God, because of His
great love, made us alive together with Christ. God made you alive
together with Christ. God buried you with Christ in
baptism, in immersion of the tomb. Your guilt was buried with
Christ, and your new life was raised with Him. That's what
it means. See, we've spiritualized that
so much we forget the truth. This is the work of God. And
what's the next thing out of Paul's pen? Now I've had breakdance
moments in my Bible reading where I might yell out loud or knock
over a glass of coffee or something like that. But I don't necessarily
think I've ever just written a dash and screamed in my writing. Paul screams in his writing,
by grace you've been saved. God Rich in mercy because of
His love for us made us alive in Christ while we were dead
in our sins. By grace you've been saved and
raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. I don't know about you all, but when I got
up this morning, I was on James Street. I wasn't in the abode of God.
I wasn't in heaven. I didn't float down. I remember being
a young boy, though, and envisioning the pastor floating down from
the top of the baptistry, some portal to heaven, and floating
down and walking out. That's sort of how I envisioned
it, when he'd stand up there in all those pretty lights and
stained glass. I wonder if he floats up to heaven when he's
done. We're not there. in a real sense,
are we? Yet Paul says we have been raised
up with Christ and we are seated with Him in the heavenly places.
Why? And what does that mean? We've
been given to the Son, so wherever the Son is, we are. The Son is
alive, we have life. The Son is our sacrifice. He is our redemption. His blood,
His life has been ransomed for us. We are forgiven. And all
the prerogatives of the body of Christ are ours, and the promises
are ours, and the power is ours in Christ Jesus. He is our life. All I have is Christ. so that in the coming ages He
might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness in
Christ Jesus, that God may continue to grow us in the knowledge of
His grace and show us His riches and His kindness in Christ. Grace,
grace, grace, and grace and truth are at Jesus. For by grace you have been saved,
By grace you have been saved. How do I know? Through faith.
And faith is not anything that you have done. It is the gift of God, not because
of something that you have done, so that you cannot boast. For
we are the workmanship of God. We, the elect, who are saved,
who are born, who believe, are the workmanship of God. We are
the workmanship of God. We've been created by God in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them. And the first and awesome and
only reality of those good works is a constant faith in Jesus
to keep His Word. And here's the beauty, 9 and
10, and we'll pick up at 9 and 10 next week and really push
into it. I'm praying for them. Isn't that great? Somebody asked
me a question this morning, or it was in my inbox this morning.
Isn't it weird, this is sort of how, just to paraphrase, how
every day on Facebook and what have you, there's so many people
asking for prayer, but these people have no intimate relationship
with the Lord or His Word or His people. So even unbelievers and marginal
believers and false believers of every iteration of some type,
everybody wants prayer. And for some strange reason,
there is this really crazy idea that pastor's prayers are more
effective. So and so needs prayer. And they
want to make sure that you knew so you could pray for them. I'd be glad to. It's a privilege
to pray. But it's no more effective than
your prayers. My role as teacher, overseer,
has no more power and authority in prayer than anybody else. Why? Because I pray by the same
authority that you do. What is it? Jesus. But if I had to pick somebody
to pray for me, And I could just call up anybody in the entire
cosmos to pray. If I had Jesus on speed dial
and He were praying for me, that'd be pretty impressive. Well, He has. And He is. I'm praying for them. Everything
Jesus ever prays is certainly done. And it's not just for these disciples.
And this is where it gets really beautiful. I'm not praying for
the world. You see the world now? I'm not
praying for the totality of lost humanity. I'm not, Jesus says,
praying for all these people. I'm praying for those you gave
me. I'm praying not for the world,
but for those whom you have given me, for they belong to you. They are yours. See, and God
didn't relinquish them. He gave them to Christ. Christ
is also God. They belong to Him. In verse
10, all mine are yours, and all yours are mine, and I am glorified
in them. And that's next week's sermon. Because Jesus has just said,
glorify me as I have glorified you, Father, in this prayer.
And now give me the glory. I command you to give me the
glory, Jesus says to the Father, now that I had with you before
the world began. eternally. Now I'm praying for
those you've given me whom I have purchased with my blood who are
mine because they are yours and then they are mine because everything
that is mine is yours and everything that is yours is mine and I am
glorified in them. I am glorified in them. That means everything that you
are, get this, If glory is to see the fullness of God in all
that He is, and if Jesus is the way to see the fullness of God
in completion, then Jesus' people, He's saying you can see the fullness
of God in those you have purchased. Because they are no longer of
the world. But they're yours. And they've
always been yours. And that teaches that grace is
all about election. That the gospel really is about
God's purpose to save only his people. And to thwart that and
to substitute that in any way is not eternal life. Beloved, how do you apply this? It's almost silly to say that
we have to teach people application. You apply this by being confident.
Because God works confidence in your spirit and mind to know
that you have been purchased by Christ. You apply this by
being settled. That in the midst of all uncertainty,
and it may seem like I'm being redundant here, but that you
are at rest. I can have confidence and still
not be at rest. Have peace. My peace, I leave
with you. My love, I give to you. My joy,
I give to you. There's the other application.
Our joy is Christ. If you're looking for Jesus to
satisfy some experiential or environmental circumstances so
that your life can be better, you are not seeing Jesus as your
joy. And you will always be seeking
the next fix that Christ can give you rather than seeing Christ
as the supreme and preeminent joy. And it's a toss. It's like juggling
fire or juggling water. It's impossible. That's why Jesus
is praying. That's why Jesus exemplifies
this. This is a guaranteed prayer that
is answered because in the church Christ is glorified and in Christ
the Father is glorified. This is a done deal. Be encouraged. Let's pray. Father, we know that Jesus continues
to say here that He keeps us. He keeps us out of the world.
We're not going to fall away. We're not going to give up our
faith even though we struggle in it. We're not going to lose
sight of His imputed righteousness, His cross work, His death, burial
and resurrection. We're not going to lose sight
that He is the sovereign God that created all things. We're
not going to forget that He comes from you. But Father, we will
get out of those practices. So by Your kindness and mercy,
draw us back into these disciplines. Draw us by Your Spirit into intimacy. Keep us in the faith. and keep
us in the disciplines of the faith. Help us in our times of temptation
as you promised to do. For we are yours. We belong to
you. That's how I can pray in my fleshly
mouth right now to your holy sovereign ear. By the authority
of the righteousness imputed to me through Jesus Christ, I
can speak to you, Father, sinless. And I can, by the power of your
Spirit, sincerely seek your will in my life. even when I seemingly
feel like I'm faking it. Lord, help us to be a true people,
not actors, but true worshipers. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.